Rainer Maria Rilke, First Elegy

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the ranks of the 
Angels? and even if one of them pressed me
suddenly to his heart I would be devoured
by his more potent being. For beauty is nothing
but the beginning of terror which we are still just able to endure,
and we stand in wonder because it coolly disdains
to destroy us. Every Angel is terrifying.
And so I grip myself and choke down that call note
of dark sobbing. Ah, whom can we turn to
in our need? Not Angels, not humans,
and the sly animals see at once
how little at home we are
in the interpreted world. Perhaps there remains for us
some tree on a slope, to which our eyes return
day after day; there remains for us yesterday’s street
and the coddled loyalty of an old habit
that liked it here, lingered, and never left.
O and the night, the night, when the wind full of worldspace
gnaws at our faces—, for whom won’t the night be there,
desired, softly disappointing, setting hard tasks
for the single heart. It is easier on lovers?
Ah, they only use each other to mask their fates.
You still don’t see? Fling the emptiness in your arms
out into the spaces we breathe; perhaps the birds
will feel the increase of air with more passionate flight. 

1912, pastiche of various translations